CRAWFORD | Louisville deepens defensive focus in 111-33 win over Bellarmine | Sports

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) – Three games in, there’s no telling yet what kind of basketball team Jeff Walz’s latest edition of the Cardinals will be. Even the coach isn’t yet clear on the team’s identity. That will only be forged in the coming weeks as the Cardinals step up in competition and get more time on the court together.

For now, Walz can turn to just about anyone. Against a Bellarmine team that had made a dozen 3-pointers in a 116-64 loss at No. 4 UCLA, Louisville played like a team in a bad mood – and one that had gotten the defensive message of Walz’s scouting report. Early in the second half, the Cardinals led 56-9, on their way to a 111-33 victory in front of a KFC Yum! Center crowd of 7,456.

Against Louisville, Bellarmine had the misfortune of facing team that might well have felt slighted after opening the season with wins over Cincinnati on the road and DePaul at home only to be dropped two spots in the Associated Press poll, which rated them at No. 17 to open the season but No. 19 in this week’s ranking.

“So tonight, Bellarmine, we knew we were going to win, right?” said Nyla Harris, a sophomore forward who had 14 points and three rebounds. “We knew that was the expectation. But again, how do we win? How do we show the voters and everyone else we are a team that should be ranked higher than 19 or 15? I think tonight we, again, had more than five players in double digits because, again, we are a team that we can all score. It's more about okay, what can we do on the defensive end? And how can we prepare for Alabama Gonzaga, all those other teams defensively. We can score. That's not the question. But it's defensively, our positioning, how are we going to keep people in front of us?”

Louisville had eight players score in double figures, forced 29 turnovers, turned them into 42 points and allowed only 12 field goals.

Sydney Taylor led the Cardinals with 15 points in 18 minutes. Kiki Jefferson, Jayda Curry and Merrissah Russell had 11 each and Olivia Cochran and Elif Istanbulluoglu had 10 each.

For now, Walz has a bunch of pieces who all contribute something. All seem capable of scoring in various ways. He knows he has three gifted players inside, in Cochran, Harris and Istanbulluoglu. But he still has plenty to learn about his club.

Admittedly, games like Thursday’s don’t do much to provide insight for Walz. But help is on the way.

“We’re going to have a big stretch here in about the next three weeks that I'll be able to get more of an idea of, OK, who's going to be able to play?” Walz said. “Am I going to really be able to go nine or 10 deep? Or is it going to be a seven-player rotation, somebody gets in foul trouble, then all of a sudden it becomes eight or nine. We've got some ballgames that are coming up here in a hurry. It's Bucknell on Sunday, then Alabama, Liberty, Gonzaga, at Ole Miss Kentucky at home. It's going to be quick. And I think we'll find out a lot. But again, it's not going to define who we are. I think it's going to give us an idea of what we really need to work on and what we're going to be good at.”

Bellarmine, which fell to 0-3, was led by Hayley Harrison with 10 points.

While a game like Thursday might not seem to have much value for a team like head coach Chancellor Dugan’s, there is a financial purpose behind playing it – and both Dugan and Walz have established the cross-town series as something that should be played every year. A year ago, Louisville went to Freedom Hall to play the Knights.

“I think anytime you get the opportunity to play a crosstown rival a game, you know, we should, and we're going to,” Walz said. “I've talked with Chancellor about it. She knows I'm willing to play every year, and as we did last year, I'm okay going there too if she wants to do home-and home. You do have schools, and they're probably one of them, that are trying to go out and play guarantee games. They do want to get a paycheck because they're trying to offset a budget. So sometimes it's like, you know, if you can get $10,000 more going up the road to play somebody, we might not be the one they play every, single year. But we tried hard last year when we went to Freedom Hall to draw a large attendance, so then they're able to make even more off of the gate instead of a guarantee. We're going to continue to be willing to work with them. Because I appreciate Chancellor, consider her a friend. And you know, tonight we did a really good job defensively of making it hard for them to score because when I watched their game against UCLA, sure it was a lopsided if you looked at the final score, but they shot the three extremely well. They pushed the ball and did some really good things. So, there were a lot of things that we were concerned about tonight.”

Louisville is back in action on Sunday afternoon at 4 p.m. against Bucknell in the KFC Yum! Center.